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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Kenneth Dewar/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 19:38, 19 April 2008.

Kenneth Dewar

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Self-nomination I'm nominating this article for featured article because I feel that it meets the FA criteria and is a balanced and informative account of the life of Royal Navy officer. It passed GA easily, and comments from Peer Review have been implemented as best as can. It's well referenced and to my mind would make an interedting addition to the ranks of FAs. Harlsbottom (talk) 07:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Issues resolved, Ealdgyth - Talk 15:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise all the links worked and the sources look good. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for pointing that out. Those were all contributions by other editors, and have now been fixed. -Harlsbottom (talk) 14:36, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still showing a citation template use when I click on the edit tab for the article. (You all know my super-secret way of finding that out!) Ealdgyth - Talk 03:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No idea where that one came from - Ctrl+F failed me. They have all disappeared now! Cheers, Harlsbottom (talk) 07:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. They like to sneak it, I know. All fixed now, hiding the resolved issues. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose—The prose needs a thorough copy-edit. I spied these pimples just at the opening.

  • "Dewar became a noted thinker on naval tactics before seeing extensive service in the First World War, serving in"—ooh, "a noted thinker" is a little la-de-dah, and fuzzy besides. A notable naval tactician? And: "service ... serving".
  • "sea-going"—check if one word.
  • Repetition ungainly, again: "he and his executive officer dared to criticise directly or indirectly their superior officer, Rear-Admiral Collard, to their superiors." And which was it—directly or indirectly? "Or" is again a problem in the very next sentence: "All three men were dismissed the ship, and were subjected to highly publicised Courts-martial or cross-examination in Gibraltar." There were only three of them; can't you tell use that ... two were ... and one was ... , or some such?
  • BrEng now usually drops the dot in "Dr".
  • "on 8 March 1900.[3] He was consequently posted to the Devonport destroyer HMS Osprey on 15 March." Why do we need "subsequently"? TONY (talk) 13:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response I've gone through it again and addressed prose issues you raised as well as re-wording and other issues which came up. However, as regards "Doctor" one can still use Dr. quite happily in Britain, and unless it's in the MOS that it has to be Dr I see no reason to change it. And sea-going is definitely a word - just scan Google Books for examples. Harlsbottom (talk) 13:36, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Still opposing, since I sampled another small bit and found much to improve.

  • "He was fortunate after the "Geddes Axe" (the systematic contraction of the Naval Service to a size substantially smaller than its pre-war level) and his controversial tenure at the Admiralty that he was still considered worthy of sea duty, the qualification for promotion to flag rank." Unwieldy snake. Comma after Admiralty, but it needs to be split up anyway.
  • "During the U.S. blockade of the Mexican port of Tampico in 1924 Dewar and Cape Town cancelled their planned cruise of the Caribbean to adequately represent the British government at Vera Cruz, proceeding there on 4 January." I had to read it twice to understand that there MUST be a comma after "1924". The whole article needs a comma audit (commas after most sentence-initial prepositional phrases would be nice). Ambiguous: at first you think the "planned cruise of the Caribbean" was "to adequately represent the British government at Vera Cruz".
  • "was relieved in command of Cape Town"—no, "of the command".

Another word-person is needed. TONY (talk) 14:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Granted, there's still more to do - I've been working on it today anyway. I accept there are still a number of unwieldy stretches of prose out there. Your last point is incorrect - "relieved in command of" is perfectly acceptable in print. As far as I'm aware my nautical terminology is on solid ground. If you suspect any of them then Google book search any exact phrase in "..." Regards, Harlsbottom (talk) 14:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose There's too much naval jargon making the article difficult to read and sound pompous. Most of the naval terms can be replaced with plain English. I have made a few suggestions here [1]. There's a problem with some of the dates too, where the year is at the start of the sentence and the day/month at the end. The lack of punctuation is another problem and I have to read some sentences twice before understanding them. I suggest asking a writer who is new to the article to knock it into shape. GrahamColmTalk 14:26, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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